Advent Visitors at Alexika Office

For one day only, the Addingham Community Travelling Crib is adorning the Alexika office frontage!  The beautifully knitted figures will make an appearance at a different local business each day during advent - and will then make a final journey to the Crib Service at St. Peter's Church in Addingham on 24th December. We hope that passers-by may take a quiet moment to enjoy the scene as they prepare for Christmas.

Dr. Shirley Lawes - Why Learning Foreign Languages Matters

There is an excellent article in the UK's Independent newspaper today, in which Dr. Shirley Lawes articulates why learning a second or third language is so important. It is not just the matter of learning a language but the access to another culture. Travelling through a country with no knowledge of the language can be fascinating - but language skills mean access to the culture on a completely different level.

Learning foreign languages is absolutely essential for business, for life - for international understanding and ultimately for world peace.

ISO9001 Accredited again

We are delighted to report that Alexika Ltd has been re-accredited as an ISO9001 Quality Assured firm. The inspection was demanding as ever, but very worthwhile. We can recommend the process for any business.

Thank you to the British Assessment Bureau for their assistance.

Message from Wiesbaden

It was a pleasure to visit Wiesbaden, capital of Hessen, last week for the SDL Partner Conference and Tekom exhibition. It is very good to keep abreast of the latest developments in translation technology - indeed these days essential to maintain the best service for our clients. Thought for the week - it seems that many different technologies are moving into the cloud and away from desktop or server-based software. But software companies in this industry and many others - from the likes of Adobe and Microsoft down to the smallest - are going to have the challenge of maintaining both systems for some time to come.

Many thanks for to technology partner SDL for such a thought provoking program and sharing some very exciting visions of the near future!

European patent translation update

A good summary of the situation for translation of patents in Europe can be read here on the EurActiv web site. The debate revolves around the need to translate a patent application to every European language verses the cost of this translation. It remains to be seen whether the Belgian presidency of the Council of the European Union Council will be able to simplify the process.